The Return of the Dancing Queen

Come this November, and Indian cinema screens will once again be ablaze with the magic of Madhuri Dixit, the Dancing Queen of Bollywood. With her impish smile and absolutely perfect dance steps, Madhuri has always set hearts aflutter. Once called the female Amitabh for her ability to carry a film on her slim shoulders and set the cash registers ringing, she chose to give it all up for marriage to an NRI doctor and two children.

However, she now returns in a movie which has her playing the central character of a dance teacher who makes an entire town dance to her tunes. The movie also features Konkona Sen Sharma, Kunal Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna and a whole lot of children.

The story goes that when she was first offered the role, she was sceptical about whether she would still command the same fan following that she did in her heydays. She was also very scared about going on the sets on the first day of shooting. However, she soon got back to the groove and this is one movie that should be a visual treat, considering the man who is directing it is none other than veteran cinematographer, Anil Mehta.

image source :www.yashrajfilms.com

The Patiala Necklace

The Patiala Necklace is perhaps one of those rare treasures that is truly a symbol of an era in which royalty was taking its last breath.

It was commissioned by the Maharaja of Patiala, Sir Bhupinder Singh. He happens to be the grandfather of Capt. Amarinder Singh, former Chief Minister of Punjab.

The story goes that the Maharaja went to Cartier's one morning with a chest, opened it and asked them to create a neckace for him using all the stones in it. That chest was overflowing with various precious stones which later formed the Patiala Necklace. A necklace so maginificent in its beauty that Cartier requested it to be displayed before the Maharaja took it to India. However, this neckalce was mysteriously lost in 1948 and reapppeared in 1998, 50 years later in London.

Justifiably, the person to find it, was a Cartier representative. All the fabulous stones had been lost. All that remained was the strings and some of the stones. Cartier took it upon itself to restore the neckace to its former glory. However, they had to replace the original stones with fake ones.

One might wonder what does a necklace such as this weigh? 1.6 kilos when it was first made. It is truly a masterpiece of its time and definitely to die for.

image source: famousdiamonds.tripod.com/debeersdiamond.html

Compact Disc turns 25!

CD turns 25! It all began with Abba's The Visitors, which was released in CD format in 1982. That marked the beginning of the end of vynil era and transformed the landscape of musical formats.

"At that time, even experienced engineers told us 'this will never work'. And we learned one should never say never. We knew that we were working on a completely new, exciting technology. However, we did not know at that time that the CD would grow to that magnitude," says Hartmut Loewer of Bayer AG.

Offering unprecedented sound quality and optimum data capacity, CD has not only changed forever the way people listen to music but also marked the beginning of the digital age. Every year, the world produces roughly 90,000 originals on CD, billions of copies of which are sold globally. And today CDs have carved a very important space for themselves in our lives.

"Wireless Age"

The MIT researchers who developed the "WiTricity" wireless power technology haven't set their sights on global broadcast power just yet, but the team is already envisioning wirelessly transmitting power to laptops or cell phones across an office or inside a house.

Because the power stream can be consistent, the devices would not even need batteries. long with LPs, audio tape, and dial-up modems, children of the future might wonder what a "power cord" was.

A team of researchers from MIT has demonstrated such a future, when they were recently able to light a 60-watt light bulb from an unconnected source about seven feet away.Dubbed "WiTricity," as in "wireless electricity," the research has been published in the June 7 issue of Science Express, an online publication of the esteemed journal, Science.Team leader Professor Marin Soljacic describes the "eureka" moment as one he experienced in his pajamas a few years ago.

He was looking at his cell phone on the kitchen counter. "It was probably the sixth time that month that I was awakened by my cell phone beeping to let me know that I had forgotten to charge it," he said in a statement. "It occurred to me that it would be so great if the thing took care of its own charging."

Confess your sins online at www.ivescrewedp.com

"Bless me father for I have sinned." Most Christians are familiar with traditional means of confession in a booth or face-to-face in a church. Now, things got better.

You can actually confess your sins by logging on to a website called www.ivescrewedp.com. This site is a brainchild of Pastor and several other church members. They thouht that this was the best way for millions to reach out to the virtual confession box. "Internet is the world we live in. People are doing life on the web.

We wanted to leverage that and give them the option of admitting their sins online.” is what they thought. All are kept anonymous. And the Church leaders screen the confessions before they are posted. One person confessed to stealing $15 thousand from family members. Another wrote, "I hate myself, the way I look, the way I think, the way I feel, everything!".

Welcome to the new age virtual confession box.

India and It's Democracy

On the face of it the state of the Indian Union looks as good as it can be. We are a young stable democracy, tried and tested, living in a nation where the head is held high, and freedom prevails.

We have an enviable growth rate of a healthy eight percent, which many developing nations wish to emulate. The IT and the industrial growth has put money in the pockets of our middle class, and many of us are seeing affluence in the post Manmohan Singh reform era which just a few years ago was beyond our imagination.

The bulk our population is young, bursting in its seams, full of energy and knowledge, ready to have a crack at an even higher pay cheque. Let’s face it we could have never had it better, “or really is it so”? Scratch the surface and the cracks begin to appear. Never has the divide been the rich and the poor or the have and have not been starker and greater. One hundred and sixty three districts are under Naxal threat, or class war.

The writ of the government does not run fully in thirty three percent of our country. The Hindi heartland is so poorly governed, that the bulk of its citizens are classified as migrant labour. The neglect of the agriculture sector, brings down the growth rate of the Indian economy, and that is where the “aam admi”, stays, that means he is taken for granted and in the process, also for a ride, because he will vote on caste basis. Why is it that cities prosper and villages are neglected? Why is it that one India surges ahead and another lags behind? Why is it that a fellow citizen, who breaths the same air, has the same blood group, is as religious as any one of us, is poor, under nourished, lacks medicinal aid, and education? The answer is complex and simple. Complex is, caste, creed, class, JAAT- PAAT, and simple is “poor governance”. As long as we will give votes on these lines we will be exploited. In our country had development come from the government aided agencies which eat up most of the funds that they have to distribute the villages would have benefited the most.

There is rampart corruption and a clear indicator is that the bulk of the disproportionate assets cases are invariably either on those who govern us or are government employees. The victory of Mayavati is a simple case of combing upper caste Brahim votes plus Muslim votes added up to the tally of Bhujan Samaj, to become the Queen of Lucknow.

Did she have a party program or was it simple you vote for me, a one point agenda. On the other hand we have the success of the Indian business man it’s an International story of Tata and Narayan Murthy. How have we as a society come to this state of affairs? It is correctly said that people get theovernment that they deserve, do we deserve criminals? How have we the clever (Chatur), Bharat Nagrik, come to this sorry state of affairs, being out classed, and poorly governed, yet accepting the same and finding answers with in the problem. If you find an answer within the problem the problem remains.

The classic case being the Gujjar agitation led by Bainsala. A word in passing about its handling. They are just five percent and people don’t take to the streets if they are not promised. When the current UPA government increased the Quotas, all other political parties stayed mum; therefore, others will be encouraged. But this precisely what we do not want, reservations are dividing us, we want to be united. What if the events could not have been controlled? Would we witness a caste war in the state? In the current scheme of things reservations was started for ten years and has not worked.

We need to change the same. Another reason why we have come to this pass is the It’s not my problem psyche while dealing with public issues. Most of us clean our house and than throw dust into the street. Some one will clean it up. This cannot happen if we do not do our duties as a citizen. As we do not raise our concerns the police have slowly been incapacitated. The government servant has learnt to live with mass transfers. The CBI is unable to stop people withdrawing cash transactions from banks. They carry out investigations and are told that they cannot prosecute. Wonder what sort of investigations they do, or are they, “government machinery”, being told to fall in line.

A national monument was destroyed and we don’t know who did it? A train is burnt and commissions are appointed but where is the answer? Thus systematically a personnel agenda is being pursued. Its Alkalis vrs Captain Amrinder Singh, Mayawati vrs Mulayam, Amma vrs Karunanidhi, in short regional parties. In Bengal the communist have become capitalist and land grabbers, in Kerala two senior functionaries are squabbling for public attention. Because of the lack of depth, regional parties have to go for one another throats, so that they can win the next round too. All this must stop because we are in a state of siege from out side and within. The judiciary remains our only hope, and attacks on it have all ready started, called judicial activism. Of course it’s a different story that we needed a campaign to get justice for Jessica, and now when Rajasthan burnt NDTV was keener on showing its Story on the BMW case. But this institution remains our only hope, if the common man feels it’s not his problem to do his bit for the nation. What is the magnitude of the siege? Look at the subcontinent, the golden democratic bird India surrounded by an Islamist Dictatorship, waging a proxy in J&K who has de-linked Northern Areas and yet we keep mum.

A communist China first grabbed Tibet which we too offered on a Platter by calling it Tibet Autonomous Region and now wants Arunachal as pudding. Turmoil in the North East ably supported by China, Burma where democracy is a historical lesson, a military ruled Bangladesh, Maoist in Nepal not ready to allow democratic vote. To cap it all the LTTE and Tamils in the south are getting ready for a possible show down. Only peace prevails in our country and Bhutan. Are we going to spoil it all, by dividing ourselves along caste lines? Think again my country men what is the inheritance we are leaving for generations to come. This siege has to be fought by all of us, united we stand divided we fall. In order to do that the first thing that we need to do is to shed the virus that divides us.

The form of governance the way in which we elect it, the manner in which we conduct it clearly needs a change. Reservations have to go, look at the pure Brahmin he is economically the weakest. This issue needs to be put before a commission who need to look at it de nova, keeping in mind many issues and not just one issue the right to privilege by birth. We need transparency in the manner of day to day administration of the country which can only come about using E governance, a better way to carry out elections a separate topic by itself, and a presidential form of government.

I have not read Arun Shourie book on the subject but feel that we need a strong man to take us out of our self induced calm. In the corporate sector Ambani could do it, the Mahatma did it for the freedom struggle, of course he had able support, it works in USA, than why not here? Time is running out. The common sense of our people is great, will the common man continue on an anti incumbency factor or does he want greater change only time will tell.

source: ndtv

Englishman goes sleepless for 11 days

Tony Wright, 42, a horticulturist by profession has stayed awake for 264 hours, i.e. 11 days. He has been researching about sleeping patterns for over 15 years and says that each side of the brain needs different amounts of sleep. In his opinion, with appropriate preperation, one can stay awake for long hours without any problem.

He created a new record when he stayed awake for such a long time. Hailing from a small English town Penzance, Tony hopes that with his experiment, he can shed more light on this and many other mysteries of the human mind.

image source: IBNlive

The iPhone is here

After the iPod, the people at Apple were wondering what else could they come up with that would make them a lot of money. Well, they decided lets' combine a phone and an iPod and make it really useful by making it internet friendly as well.

What makes it different to other phones? The touch screen. It completely removes the need for buttons on your phone!! So, there is no longer any need to keep pushing buttons on your phone. It has only three buttons on the side for sleep/awake, volume and ringer control.

This is a phone that aims to transform mobile telephony. The result is of course for all to see. It is definitely the phone that will be the most anticipated as there are regions of the world that won't get to see it till early 2008. However, the question that remains is will it live up to its promise?

Microsoft launches 3D view of cities

Microsoft has launched 3-dimesnsional view of the major cities of the world. This service is made available through their Live Search service. Besides providing a view of the iconic locations, the service provides local listings, ratings and reviews and driving directions to help people easily find, discover, plan and share relevant topographical information.

3-D imagery of New York City debuts along with similar aerial perspectives of several other American, British and Canadian cities with Microsoft promising to make available many more by the end of the summer. For New York City, it provides aerial views of Times Square, Central Park, Wall Street, Rockefeller Plaza besides dozens of other famous spots as also business listings, location and contact information, consumer ratings and reviews, maps and real-time traffic incidents.

Shrek 3

Shrek 3, the third in the highly popular animated series is hitting screens in India on June 1st. Although, it hasn't exactly received the reviews the first two movies did, it promises to be a whole lot of fun for the kiddy brigade.

The story is about Shrek's quest as he goes from a reluctant to an accepting father and king. The Shrek franchise has been an enormously successful one.

At last count, the total box office receipts were $1.4 billion and DVD sales stood at 90 million. That's a lot for an ogre who didn't want anything in the first place. Justin Timberlake makes his debut in Shrek 3.

A role many believe he got because of ex-girlfriend Cameron Diaz. But, unfortunately, they couldn't last till the movie came out. However, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas are all back to give more excitement and make a boring day fun.

By now, everyone knows what the story is and all that is left to do is to go buy some tickets, some popcorn and enjoy the show.

Image Source:www.shrek.com

Aerosmith Live in Bangalore on June 2nd 2007

Legendary rock band Aerosmith is all set to perform at Bangalore on June 2nd 2007. Led by Steven Tyler, the band consists of Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Joey Kramer and Tom Hamilton. The band started their career back in 1973 with a self titled album. Aerosmith is named 57th in the list of 100 greatest rock bands of all time by the famous Rolling Stone magazine. The band has religious fan following with the name 'Blue Army' with over a million members worldwide. Bangalore is all set to view a spectacle on this Saturday evening. Aerosmith's greatest songs include 'Dream on', 'Walk this way' and 'Crazy'. Inspite of rumours of Steven Tyler planning to quit the band, they have been going stronr over the last three decades.

image source: Wikipedia